Rep. Ryan Voted for the Auto Bailout Before He Was Against It
Rep. Paul Ryan, running mate of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, voted in December of 2008 to lend billions to General Motors and Chrysler. His vote puts him at odds with Romney and spotlights the difference in political needs of a sitting congressman versus an out of work governor.
Ryan was one of 32 Republican members of the House of Representatives who voted that year to lend money to the automakers from an already appropriated pot of money for the Department of Energy to make loans to automakers to aid in the development and manufacture of more fuel-efficient vehicles.
Ryan, a fiscal hawk, has said on different occasions that he did not want to see the automakers go bankrupt because, under a traditional bankruptcy, thousands of GM UAW retirees in his district could lose their benefits. Ryan's district includes Janesville, Wis., which was home to a GM plant that shuttered in 2008.
Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts who had no skin in the game except for his desire to run for president in 2012, advocated for just such a traditional bankruptcy in 2008 and specifically said the union and retirees should take their lumps with bondholders. In the end, the Obama White House directed a tax-payer financed rescue of the auto industry that committed some $85 billion to reorganize GM and Chrysler, as well as provide liquidity to parts companies and the automaker finance arms. The U.S. Treasury has said that the final bill to taxpayers after the loans to GM and Chrysler has been repaid and when the U.S. sells its remaining 26 percent stake in GM should be about $25 billion.
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